In this tutorial I will show you how to create a really cool and easy typographic portrait in Adobe Photoshop CS4. The whole process is quite simple and easy to understand, but it might take some time to add too many texts and elements. Lets do it then.

Step:1

Open Photoshop CS4, create a new document of any size. Import a photo of yours. Extract the background of you photo.

Duplicate the layer of your photo. Go to Image->Adjustments->Desaturate or press Shift+Ctrl+U (apply to the top layer of your photo). Save the file as .psd.

Step:2

Create a new document of the same size as of the previous one. Add some text layers say more than 7 layers and keep at-least 40-50 words in each text layer. Tip: use serif type fonts, they create effects and play with the line-heights, style, size of the text. If the texts are not readable then it will do, try to create some traffic or dense forms of texts.

Step:3

For each text layer, go to Layer->Layer Style->Drop Shadow, use Multiply for the Blend Mode, black for the color, 90º for the Angle and 5 pixels for Distance, Spread and Size.

Group all the layers and duplicate the group. Select the top-most group and then go to Layer->Merge Group.

Go to Filter->Blur->Gaussiun Blur, use 10 pixels for the radius.

Keep the blurry layer behind the regular one, the idea is to add some depth and thats why the shadow effect is created by blurring the text layer.

Step:4

Merge all the layers, go to Filter->Distort->Displace,use 15 for the Horizontal and Vertical Scale; use Tile for Displacement Map and Repeat Edge Pixels for the Undefined Areas. After clicking OK a dialog box will ask for a .psd file, select the .psd file that we have created in Step:1. After selecting the file the text layer will mask the desaturated photo layer of the selected file and text layer will create some depths and some displacements.

Step:5

Import the colored photo layer from the file we have created in Step:1 and keep it on top of the text layer.

Double click the photo layer and apply Light Burn in Blend Mode.

Go to Filter->Noise->Dust & Scratches, use 7 pixels for the Radius and 0 levels for the Threshold.

Step:6

Mask the text layer so that you will just have the text on the photo.

Conclusion: There are many ways to add effects, just try and play with filters and image adjustments to create different effects.